This very short blog is to exhort anyone within travelling distance of Bideford on Avon in Warwickshire to visit the forests he has bequeathed to the public.
Dennis died in 2014, leaving an estimated £750 million fortune. Apparently 80% of that has been earmarked for his Heart of England Forest work.
‘Larger than life’ doesn’t do justice to the man. Perhaps it is fitting his statue in the grounds of Dursington Forest is about 8’ tall. And by the way, he was a rather impressive poet:
Whosoever plants a tree
Winks at immortality.
Woodland cherries, flowers ablaze,
Hold no hint of human praise;
Hazels in a hidden glade
Give no thought to stake or spade;
London planes in Georgian squares
Count no patrons in their prayers;
Seed and sapling seek no cause,
Bark and beetle shun applause;
Leaf and shoot know nought of debt,
Twig and root are dumb— and yet
Choirs of songbirds greet each day
With eulogies, as if to say:
‘Whosoever plants a tree
Winks at immortality!'
Farbulous!
Jack Stewart, 28/5/2017.